“Even though I was born in Zambia, I have spent most of my life in Carmarthenshire, having attended Ysgol Gyfun Bro Myrddin in the town, and later my first degree in Rural Environment at Trinity College. Carmarthen is my home and I proudly like the fact that I can walk to work and all the places I need, including the allotment! Carmarthen itself is the oldest town in Wales, with mixed socio-economic groups, reliance on public service jobs, road and train networks that haven't changed over my lifetime, increased housing, lack of community hubs within housing estates, empty shops, good cultural and Welsh language connections. I think the priorities are to keep Carmarthen's identity, build on small shops promoting buying locally, increase opportunities for public transport and active transport, increase the health component, by promoting a healthy lifestyle, build on existing networks, and make sure there is connection between these networks.”

Emily Laurens (she/her) is a multi-disciplinary socially engaged artist, art psychotherapist and facilitator based in Wales. Most of her work is about the relationship between ecological crisis, queerness and social justice, using radical imagination to envision new futures. Emily’s work spans theatre, live art, clown, visual art, film-making, and working collaboratively with communities. Emily is a core group member of Carmarthen’s Local Motion project, co-director of Feral Theatre, co-founder of Remembrance Day for Lost Species and an art psychotherapist with sexual violence charity New Pathways.

Jane has been involved with the Localmotion team since July 2025, and is a member of the Coordination Group.

From 1990 to 2017, she worked as a community based midwife in and around Carmarthen. After retiring, she went to University of Wales Trinity St. David in Lampeter to fulfill her dream of being a student;, as she went from school straight to work in the NHS in 1975. “One degree and masters later, it was time to give something back to the town I call home. The inequalities of access to health care, the two tier system of digital access, and the raw poverty of some households in the town ,don’t seem to have changed much since I started back in the 90s.”

These are areas Jane would like to look at to see if LocalMotion Carmarthen, can help give people the skills and knowledge to help themselves organize to improve the situation.

Jenny represents Carmarthen Town Council and has been involved in LocalMotion Carmarthen since the beginning of the programme. As the Events and Community officer Jenny is committed to helping and enabling a bright and ambitious for Carmarthen.

Jenny is an activist from Carmarthen and a member of the LocalMotion co-ordination group.

She’s worked in climate roles across different sector and now works for Friends of the Earth Cymru as Activism and Community Campaigns officer, supporting activists across Wales to take action on the climate and social justice crises. She has a Masters in Sustainable Leadership with a focus on participative democracy and the just transition.

Carmarthen Pride

DR. Sam Savile is an environmental geographer who teaches across several sustainability masters courses as a senior lecturer at the Centre for Alternative Technology (CAT). She has a long term interest in the process of moving towards a sustainable and just future. Having embraced the technical aspects of renewable energy and sustainable building techniques, she nevertheless remains focussed on the political, community and personal systemic changes needed. She lives in the hills outside Carmarthen and is excited about the ecosystem of projects springing up from LocalMotion, hopefully soon to include a collaboration with CAT.

https://cat.org.uk/person/dr-sam-saville/